


Power Relinquished

by Cornerofmadness



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergent, Gen, Malcolm Bright Gets a Hug, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23990971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornerofmadness/pseuds/Cornerofmadness
Summary: His home is awash in blood and Malcolm can barely breathe.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 80
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	Power Relinquished

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Not mine, Chris Fedak and Sam Sklaver owns it
> 
> **Notes:** written for 3AM_moonlight in comment_fic for the prompt Any, any, money talks, wealth whispers, and power is silent. It takes place immediately after the finale so definite finale spoilers. This is also written using the shattered glass prompt from Get Your Words out Yahtzee and allbingo's 'power.' It was hard to tell what Gil's new car was since we only saw it at night. This is my best guess.
> 
>  _More Notes_ Apparently I entirely misremembered where Gil was attacked so I have two choices, toss the story or label it canon divergent. I'm going with the latter.

_We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. – George Orwell, **1984**_

XXX

Malcolm sat trembling by the door to the living room, leaning against the frame so he could peer in and watch Edrisa and her team work. Edrisa’s phone, one he had lifted her pocket when she’d embraced him for a second time that day – or was it the next day now? He’d lost all track of time – rocked in his hand that shook so hard he couldn’t even turn the device on. In his mind’s eye, he saw the sorrow, the kept tears, in Edrisa’s rich brown eyes just before she flung her arms around him. She’d squeezed him tight, telling him how sorry she was, leaving him wracked with guilt. He was telling them all another lie. Before calling the cops, Malcolm had run his gun up to the attic and hid it there, not that he’d shot Endicott - _damn it, I should have been the one to kill him. It shouldn’t have been like **this** _! – but rather because his explanation for what had happened wouldn’t work if he had a gun at his disposal.

Did his sister remember what he coached her to say? Ainsley had dissociated, gone into a fugue state as she sliced Endicott up like lunch meat. That part of the story was true. So was the fact Endicott had attempted – or maybe succeeded because Gil was still in surgery when Malcolm had fled the hospital to help Ainsley – to murder Gil. It was true that Endicott had framed him – if he could prove it – and had threatened his mother – she recorded some of it she thought. Endicott had definitely held Ainsley under duress. What wasn’t true was that Endicott had a weapon. Oh, he did now, and Malcolm had done it up right. That’s what had stung about Dani’s doubt – not that he’d ever tell her. He knew forensics like he knew himself. He’d never have left a pound of trace evidence on Eve’s killer. 

Tonight he’d gone to the dining room and retrieved another knife from the dinner Endicott had connived out of his mother. He’d have to send forensics there too because shattered ceramic and Endicott’s blood decorated the table after Mother had clocked him in the head. This was pay back for his mother’s rejection, for Malcolm’s intrusion into Endicott’s web of assassins and power. He’d taken that knife, cleaned blood off Endicott’s fingers and wrapped them around the handle just in case the man hadn’t touched the knife during dinner. He left the knife in the blood next to him, redipped Endicott’s fingers in his own blood and told Ainsley she’d done it to save his life. Malcolm honestly believed she didn’t remember any of the attack and that she had done it to save them.

Malcolm had held her until the team arrived. Dani and JT had come to help him. In spite of everything, despite Gil still hanging in the balance, they had come for him. JT had Ainsley in another room talking to her while Dani took charge over Endicott’s body. Edrisa and her team worked in a fever pitch. She would do anything to clear him and his sister. Malcolm wasn’t sure he deserved a friend like Edrisa. The smells from the room had turned horrific, something out of an abattoir, blood, feces and urine assaulting the senses. Of course, the foyer was little better with Gil’s blood all over the Oriental rug. Malcolm couldn’t even look toward the door. 

Beyond the door, his mother was probably frantically stalking around trying to get in the house but the uniformed officers wouldn’t let her. He knew she already summoned her army of lawyers. Ainsley and he would need them. His only hope was with Endicott gone those he had bullied, threatened or just plain bought would speak out to save their own skins. That in mind, he keyed in Edrisa’s password which she had given to him when he’d been hiding out in her morgue. _Just in case_ , she had said. He knew pictures would be on here, ones he didn’t want to see but had to.

Malcolm leaned his head back against the wall, eyes shut, bracing him. In his head, he heard one of his Quantico instructors as clearly as if the man was in the room with him. He’d hated Curry as much as he’d disliked the kids in boarding school for the same reason: Curry was a bully and he’d taken an instant disliking to the Surgeon’s son. _Money talks and bullshit walks,_ he’d tell the class again and again, each time staring right at Malcolm as if he had somehow bought his way into Quantico. There was, of course, some truth to that crass idiom. Money did indeed talk. It had gotten him out on bail – for another few minutes anyhow because by the end of the night he and Ainsley both were probably going to be sitting in jail.

But true wealth, be it monetary or spiritual or kindness, whispered. His mother, for all her flamboyance and well-meaning overbearing looming large in his life, whispered her wealth all over town: women’s shelters, children’s hospitals, cancer research – which still hadn’t been enough to save Jackie – anti-trafficking charities – Damn, Eve, why? – suicide prevention organizations, each donation in _his_ name because his mother knew him well. Maybe if she had taken back her maiden name like he wanted her to she wouldn’t have to whisper as much or maybe she preferred it this way. She wanted to do good. She had a kind soul. She deserved better than she got, and he admired how she might bow but not break.

What Malcolm truly understood now like he had never before: Power was silent. Endicott proved that. He had silently pulled strings all over the city. He’d orchestrated Martin Whitly’s gilded cage on the off chance he’d use Sophie’s information to sound a bell in Endicott’s quiet realm. He’d framed Malcolm so well that his only chance was to have the team flip the forensic lab techs, bluff them into thinking Endicott had kept written records. He’d bought lawyers. The city would be years in rooting out each corrupting vine Endicott had planted in the criminal justice system. Using his power, he destroyed people, entire families, indiscriminately with making nary a peep that didn’t maintain the veneer that he wanted the world to see him as: the kind benefactor of the arts. He’d offered that power to his mother in exchange for her body and whatever else he might have wanted, probably to rub it in Martin’s face. Malcolm had listened to a bit of what she’d recorded on her phone, sitting briefly with her in the hospital. If she gave in to Endicott, he’d use his power to clear Malcolm. Would her answer had been something other than a blow to the head had he not tried to murder Gil? Such was his power that he had the audacity to stab a NYPD police lieutenant to death and expect the Whitlys to clean up the blood without turning him in. 

Underestimating the Whitly women was the last thing Endicott would ever do. Malcolm opened his eyes and paged through the crime scene photos he knew Edrisa had taken personally at the hospital. Under the bright forensic light stations, Gil’s ‘new’ blue Monaco 500 sat off to the side in the parking near the emergency room entrance. Malcolm trailed a trembling finger over the shattered glass of the windshield. His mother had done that. Gil hadn’t had his new car more than a few weeks. Malcolm had put some money toward it, feeling guilty that he’d crushed Gil’s beloved Le Mans even though both men knew if he hadn’t hit the ragtop, he’d have died. The Le Mans had saved Malcolm’s life. The Monaco had saved Gil’s.

Malcolm still couldn’t believe that Jessica Whitly had the courage and strength to witness Gil’s brutal attack, duck back into the dining room like nothing had happened and then knocked Endicott straight out so she could ride to the rescue. In stiletto heels. Using Gil’s dropped keys and his new car. How the hell did his mother even run in those heels? He didn’t even know his mother could drive. He’d never seen her do it. A swell of pride washed through him. Endicott had sought to shame him, calling him his mother’s son. Maybe he was right about that but it held no shame. Jessica Whitly had kept her head, taken out one bad guy, T-boned the other bad guy so hard it shattered the Monaco’s windshield and popped the trunk on the getaway vehicle. She had scooped Gil up, tossed him in the Monaco and got him to the hospital hopefully in time to save him. He was proud to be her son and to have even half her strength. 

He scrolled to the next picture, freezing instantly. Blood drenched the entire car seat, smearing the door and dashboard. Gil’s blood. So much blood. “Gil,” he whispered, unable to tear his gaze away. Was Gil still alive? Could he withstand this much loss? Is this what his mother felt when he crawled out of the hidden space under the house, with so much of his own blood caking his clothing and body?

“Bright, hey, Bright?”

He blinked at the voice coming at him from such a distance. Who was it? Someone shook his shoulder making his head loll on the floor. Floor? Malcolm stared up at Dani who squatted next to him with a blanket in her hands. She had to have gone around him and up the stairs without him noticing to have grabbed that from a bedroom. Had he fainted? Since he was sprawled on the floor, Edrisa’s phone still in his hand, he must have done or had dissociated just like Ainsley.

“You’re not supposed to have this.” She slipped Edrisa’s phone from his quaking hand before helping him to sit up against the wall. Dani sat next to him and wrapped him in the blanket. “Talk to me, Bright.”

He couldn’t find the words.

“Bright…Malcolm,” she said softly, tugging the blanket and him against her shoulder. “Talk to me.”

“Where’s Ainsley?” he asked even though he knew she was in the library with JT.

Dani brushed the hair out of his eyes. “JT is questioning her but other than what you both said when we arrived, she’s not talking. Did you tell her to wait for a lawyer?”

He blinked. “She might be in shock.”

“You definitely are. You’re shaking all over.” Dani slipped an arm around his back and held him tighter.

“She did it to save me,” he murmured.

“I believe you.” Something in her voice whispered ‘this time.’ 

“Is he…I left the hospital when Ains called.” Malcolm couldn’t choke the words out past his grief-swollen throat. He concentrated his gaze on the blood soaked antique rug in front of the stairs and the tremors racked his body harder. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Dani go gray as the realization settled over her whose blood it was. “Did Gil make it?”

She bobbed her head quickly. “They were just taking him to ICU when you called. They said they’re cautiously optimistic he’ll recover.” Dani licked her lips nervously. “It’s just like when we had to wait and hear if you were going to survive. I don’t think you realized how bad off you were when you went after Watkins.”

Malcolm barely heard her. Something snapped inside his head when he heard ‘cautiously optimistic’, broke so loudly he was sure Dani heard it too. He hunched over, tearing out of her grasp and he howled. Malcolm couldn’t stop the loud, low-pitched, animalistic sound of agony. Dani’s arms went around him again as she folded up against his back, rocking him. Someone came running and hit their knees. Edrisa bent down, so her face close to his he could feel her breath. She shed her blood-caked gloves, tossing them aside, and she stroked his hair.

It went on until he could no longer get air past the anxiety-tightened bands of steel around his chest. Lightheaded, he sat back up, half collapsed against the wall, half in Dani’s lap. Edrisa moved in on his other side, helping to pin him up before he ended up puddled on the floor. He didn’t know how he’d not end up on a seventy-two hour hold in Bellevue tonight but better that than back in a prison cell until the Endicott meddling was sorted out. Hell, he knew enough how to fake insanity to avoid going back to prison if he had to. He finally managed to grab some air in little hiccupping gasps. 

“Malcolm, are you with us?” Edrisa asked, and then to Dani added, “We might have to lie him down and get his feet propped up.”

“Okay,” he muttered. “I’m okay…no I’m not but I can breathe now.”

Dani put her hand over his and squeezed. “Gil is strong. You know that.”

“What I know is that’s _his_ blood all over Great-Grandma’s prized rug.” He nodded to the door.

“I’ll get my men to get it out of here now,” Edrisa said. “It has to go anyhow.”

He nodded, mouthing thank you to her. She got up and went to get someone to remove the offending rug. He dragged in a ragged breath. “Outside Mom’s in a dress covered in his blood too.”

“We’ll let her in once the scene is processed, just long enough to get some clothes. You know she can’t stay here tonight,” Dani said.

“You’re arresting my sister,” he said.

“JT has no choice, and I know you know it. Your mother will probably have her out on bond as fast as she did you.”

He shook his head. “Take her to Bellevue. She’s dissociative. You and JT can make that call. She can be in a locked ward there just as well as any prison.”

Dani’s gaze penetrated him, making him feel transparent, like she could see the half-truths he’d spun but then she nodded. “We can do that. I’ll talk to JT.”

“Are you arresting me now again? I know a warrant was taken out for first degree murder.”

“We never got it before Gil was stabbed. Right now, as far I’m concerned you’re still out on bond. Go with your mother, Malcolm. Take her to your place. Go to a hotel. And to be honest, I’d section nine _you_ before I’d transport your sister to Bellevue. Truthfully, I’m not sure you are safe out on your own.”

“That is smart,” he said, thinking of how suicidal he’d felt after visiting Eve’s killer and not even being able to get near him because all he could see was his father gleefully digging the man’s eyes out with his thumbs. Dani’s features pinched with worry and her remaining color fled.

Edrisa popped back out as two of her crew wheeled Endicott’s body toward the door on a gurney. Malcolm was glad the man was dead. He didn’t even feel guilty over that. However, a voice in his head said, _Can you ever trust Ainsley again_? “Should we let Mrs. Whitly in now, detective?” she asked.

Dani stood up and held out a hand to him. Malcolm got to his feet, which were so weak they could barely hold him. “JT is taking Ainsley out the back. I need to talk to him but after that I can take Mrs. Whitly upstairs to pack a bag.”

Edrisa nodded and waved her men on. Another two stopped for the rug. Malcolm’s mother didn’t wait. She broke past the uniformed officer who had been babysitting her, slithered past Endicott’s cooling body and raced to Malcolm. 

His mother grabbed him, embracing him so hard what little air he was able to get whooshed out of him. Malcolm threw his arms around her and wept against her neck like he was ten and terrified again. Dani patted his shoulder, and he heard her walk off to discuss with JT about the involuntary mental health commitment for Ainsley versus the station’s interrogation room. Hopefully his sister had been convincing that she needed to be on an involuntary hold but truth was there’d be little need of convincing. Something in her had broken too. It was a day for shattering, and his only consolation was Endicott’s power had fractured like glass. It wasn’t over yet. Power had residual affects but for the first time since it began, Malcolm felt a glimmer of hope. He’d cling to that because he had to. He wouldn’t make it otherwise.


End file.
